[2][3] In April 2015, Yosyf Zisels stated that the combination of the slur "zhyd" and the word "banderite", which killed Jews, "acquired a new meaning and a positive connotation".

[5] Yosyf Zisels noted that "You cannot hang stereotypical labels on the OUN and UPA, which fought primarily for the independence of Ukraine.

[8] After the speech of the President of Israel Reuven Rivlin on 27 September 2016 in the Verkhovna Rada, during which the President mentioned one and a half million Jews who died in Ukraine, about the Ukrainian Righteous Among the Nations and the complicity of the OUN in the Holocaust, Zissels said that he was already too old, out of his mind a man with "senile dementia"[9] and he does not reflect the opinion of the young.

Yuriy Kanner [ru], president of the Russian Jewish Congress, accused Zisels of blaming Jews for the Holocaust based on the assassination of Symon Petliura by Sholom Schwartzbard.

[16] On 27 April 2018, Zissels criticized the opinion of 56 US congressmen who were concerned about the "growth of state-funded anti-Semitism",[17] saying that their words were not true.